January / February 2020
I have always looked up to men like David Livingstone, Hudson Taylor and Jim Elliot. Men that understood the urgency of the message they possessed in a way that launched them out into the darkest places. These men left profound legacies on three different continents in our world that have shaped the church in modern times. Men of this stature give us grand dreams of white harvest fields, but many times the realities of our different fields bring discouraging results.
There are many reasons why our harvests vary. Governments change, hearts grow cold and culture shifts in ways that not only diminish the harvest but can even make it tough to sow seed. It’s easy to become discouraged when our efforts to make disciples do not bear fruit. It’s easy to associate success with results, but to those of you who would question the field in which God has placed you I encourage you to take a look at the life of Robert Bruce.
Robert was a missionary to Iranian Muslims in the nineteenth century. You have probably never heard of him. Unlike the titans I mentioned above his life seemed to have little impact on the Iranian people. In fact, I found it hard to find anything written about his efforts in Persia except a quote I recently heard, but it is this quote that reminds us of the work to be done.
“I am not reaping the harvest; I scarcely claim to be sowing the seed; I am hardly ploughing the soil; but I am gathering out the stones. That, too, is missionary work; let it be supported by loving sympathy and fervent prayer.”
Many might look at Robert’s life and see a foolish man that toiled his days away on infertile ground. In fact, as of 1979 there were only 500 known Christians from a Muslim background in Persia. The hard field of his work was summed up well in this letter to his supporters. But as I have reflected on Robert’s life, I become increasingly thankful for his witness. It reminds me that sometimes fields need stone gatherers before the harvest. This doesn’t mean that our witness is void of heralding the good news, in fact, Robert was instrumental in helping translate the Bible into Persian, but he was also prepared for any work that honored Christ by preparing a way for the harvest.
“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”
1 Peter 3:15
In fact, that harvest in the Iranian church is just now over 150 years later being realized. The dawn has come to the Iranian people. According to the Joshua Project more Iranians have come to Christ in the past twenty years than in the previous 1,300 years! This reminds us that we are called to honor Christ in our hearts and always be prepared to make a defense of the hope that is in us, and sometimes that requires hard work. My encouragement to those of you today, who also find yourself in hard, rocky places. Keep gathering stones! Love those around you, pray for good soil, and be prepared to gently and compassionately proclaim Christ to cold hearts.
Ministry Update
We are continuing to seek good grounds with our work in communities here in Berlin. Our boys and girls in Reinickendorf we work with on Tuesdays are responding well to a series we are doing on characteristics of a good team. These characteristics are focused on key attributes we see in God’s character such as humility, servanthood, integrity, etc.. and are completely counter-cultural to the environment they live in. Pray they would grasp who God is as we remove cultural stumbling blocks that would be barriers to them seeing the gospel.
We are also using a similar approach with our monthly Open Table. We had a really good group of men the past two months and good conversations about deeper spiritual things through the icebreaker questions we have asked at these gatherings. The majority of men who attend are from Muslim backgrounds. Pray for us as we seek to engage these men and that we would be ready to give account of Christ in these moments. Especially my friend Arash. He is seeking the truth and looking in God’s Word for answers. Pray the Holy Spirit would open his eyes to truth.
We are thankful to be a part of the continuing efforts at Crossway Church. We recorded our largest attendance on record two weeks ago and it is a blessing to be a part of such a diverse community of believers (25 nations in total). This past month we did a series on Ephesians 4 and Christ-centered community. I joined the teaching team at the end of last year and it has been a tremendous blessing planning and preparing sermons alongside the other men in this group over the past couple of months.
We have also been very involved with our teen and youth programs as our co-worker Caleb left at the end of the year. Cherry and I teach children’s church monthly and help weekly with our kid’s bible study on Sunday’s. We also support our youth director Kristi on Saturday’s with our teen events. Working with these teens is such a unique opportunity, because many of them are not believers. We are studying Daniel right now on how these teens can be resolved to stand for God in a really tough place.
Pray for us as we begin to use our new home for ministry. We hosted our men’s prayer breakfast last month and are hoping to start a young family’s group. We hosted the teens this past week as well and we are thankful to begin seeing the potential that our home has for welcoming others and for studying God’s Word. We are thankful for how well it has worked for hosting and see it as a tremendous tool to minister here in Berlin.
Family Update
We were able to catch our breath two weeks ago from a busy start to the year with the girl’s winter break. We used the time to get things better organized around the house and spend some extra time as a family.
The girls received their report cards before the break and we are really proud of them. They both received really good marks. We have noticed that Quinn struggles with switching letters at times and this has made it tougher, especially in reading and German instruction. We are having her tested in the coming weeks and look forward to finding out if there are ways we can help her with this.
Prayer Update
Pray for us as we prepare for a soccer tournament with refugees from across the city in April as well as an Easter Festival in the refugee accommodation we work in.
Pray for Quinn’s testing and wisdom for how we can help both girls in the tough academic environment they are in.
Pray for us as we step into new leadership roles with our community and as we seek to grow discipleship in our church and in the communities we are working in.